18 December 2013 11:00 AM

Can We Be Friends? I doubt it. But Matthew Perry, Please Read This on 'Addiction'

AS my BBC Newsnight exchange with Matthew Perry (more on this later) has revived interest in the subject, I take this opportunity to publish here in full ( and I hope he won’t mind) the result of a long exchange I had last March with a blogger who calls himself ‘Citizen Sane’, and who had quite strongly attacked my views on addiction. There'sa link in the text to the detailed argument. I don’t expect it to convince everybody, but I think that, in making his honourable and remarkably honest retreat, ‘Citizen Sane’ might have something to teach dogmatic believers in ‘addiction’ such as Matthew Perry, who I hope will read this.

It’s been an unusual week. It’s not often that I get to exchange opinions with a renowned conservative columnist on my blog, but that is what has been happening. Further to my previous post documenting a conversation on Twitter with Peter Hitchens about addiction, he personally responded to my points at great length in the comments section. To which I replied. To which he replied. To which I replied. To which he replied. To which I replied. To which he replied again. It’s all here (http://citizensane.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/youre-gonna-have-to-face-it-youre-addicted-to-peter-hitchens/ ) and makes, I think, for an interesting read.

It was also unusual for me in that, after starting from a resolute position on the subject of addiction and continuing with this theme for most of the conversation, I suddenly found myself having enormous doubts about my stance when I attempted to respond to his following request:

‘You’re going to need to strip the whole thing down to bright metal, and ask yourself to answer the following question with a clear, unambiguous definition. ‘What is “addiction”?’

In short, I couldn’t do it. It slowly dawned on me, while trying to construct a watertight definition, that it wasn’t logically possible. The language involved is either blatantly self-contradictory or intellectually inconsistent.

I’ll try to summarise my newly found position. Addiction is commonly understood as being some overbearing and unstoppable illness that renders its victims completely unable to withstand its temptations. In response to his debate on the subject with Hitchens on Newsnight, for example, Russell Brand (famously an ex-heroin user) wrote a comment piece in The Spectator. Here, he wrote:

…the mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless (my emphasis) over their addiction and, unless they have structured help, they have no hope.

But this simply cannot be true from a logical point of view. If addiction really did render addicts “completely powerless” then nobody would ever give up any addiction, would they? Addiction would be a one way destination, impossible to return from. So addiction cannot mean this, we must dismiss that definition. So instead of words like ‘compulsive’ or ‘irresistible’ what should we use? Powerful? Gripping? What we have now is a watered down version of addiction which is self-contradictory. If it is a compulsion then that is absolute. We cannot then say it’s a compulsion that can be defeated – that is nonsensical. Therefore we downgrade it to mean “something that is very difficult to resist”. Difficult, yes. Impossible? No. Either way, we have either a definition of addiction that is blatantly false or a mishmash. The first option removes the notion of choice or will or determination. The second definition contradicts the first and relegates addiction to something that requires lots of willpower.

As Peter Hitchens said in one of his replies:

‘Of course, as I know well from dozens of these debates, you will now start to redefine ‘addiction’ for *this* part of the argument, saying that it doesn’t actually mean total compulsion. But you will retain the original definition, of an overmastering irresistible power, for the other part of the argument, the one you use to excuse the alleged ‘addicts’. This is called ‘inconsistency’, and in a serious argument it loses you lots of points.

‘In this argument, because conventional opinion and majority opinion are behind you, and because you (and intellectual fashion in general) have a deep dislike of the concept of free will and full human responsibility, you can dance around it and pretend that you haven’t committed an offence against reason. Most people listening or reading will applaud you. But you will still have lost the point.’

This was the killer blow for me: it clanged like a bell in my head, arousing the dormant logician within. I had unwittingly fallen into a semantic bear trap of claiming that it is a truly powerful force that compels the user to continue but not so powerful a force that it negates free will entirely. It cannot be one *and* the other and I had to acknowledge this.

From everything I have read so far on the subject, much of it on Mr Hitchens’ own blog but also elsewhere, similar nonsensical positions are advanced on such a routine basis that it’s staggering that the contradiction is not more frequently pointed out.

In this piece, for example, which heralds a new definition of addiction by the American Society of Addictive Medicine (ASAM), there are a number of inconsistent statements in the very first page: (the words in bold are my emphasis)

‘If you think addiction is all about booze, drugs, sex, gambling, food and other irresistible vices, think again. And if you believe that a person has a choice whether or not to indulge in an addictive behavior, get over it. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) blew the whistle on these deeply held notions with its official release of a new document defining addiction as a chronic neurological disorder involving many brain functions, most notably a devastating imbalance in the so-called reward circuitry. This fundamental impairment in the experience of pleasure literally compels the addict to chase the chemical highs produced by substances like drugs and alcohol and obsessive behaviors like sex, food and gambling.’

So the person does not have a choice, they are *literally compelled*. If this is true, if this is really what addiction means, then there is nothing that can be done is there? Once addicted, there can be no way out. But how does this square with the fact that many people do overcome their addictions? Not easily, not without setback and almost certainly not without support – but they do it.

There’s more (in this quote the italics are the emphasis of the original article, not mine):

In other words, conscious choice plays little or no role in the actual state of addiction; as a result, *a person cannot choose not to be addicted*. The most an addict can do is choose not to use the substance or engage in the behavior that reinforces the entire self-destructive reward-circuitry loop.

In the preceding quote, it was claimed that it’s not possible to believe that a person has a choice whether or not to indulge in an addictive behaviour. Yet in the same the article, just a paragraph or two later, they unwittingly water down the definition by saying that conscious choice plays “little or no role”. They’ve let a chink of light in there – they’d just told us that there is *no* choice, but now there’s at least the possibility that choice can play a *little* role. Well, which is it? Such language, in my admittedly limited reading on the subject (hell, I’m no expert, but I can spot inconsistent language, even if I didn’t originally see it in my own) is routine.

Peter Hitchens debated the subject recently with Damian Thompson who uses similar contradictory terminology, stating that addiction is compulsive behaviour but it remains a matter of choice. It can be compulsive, it can be a matter of choice, but it cannot – by definition – be both.

I have written much more here than I intended to do. Indeed, anyone still reading this rambling post might conclude that I am crazy to a) reach consensus with Peter Hitchens after publicly baiting him about the subject and b) then write a lengthy follow-up post that details just how wrong I now consider my original position to have been. And they may be right. Nonetheless, my exchanges with Mr Hitchens were educational and forced me to forgo my original complacent position and to delve a little deeper into a subject that is extremely ambiguous.

My initial exchanges were based on a misunderstanding of what I thought Peter Hitchens meant by saying that he doesn’t believe that addiction exists. I think this is a common misunderstanding by his critics, many of whom, I suspect, choose to misunderstand him deliberately. I initially thought that by denying its existence he was actually denying the reality of being drawn to a substance. But of course he doesn’t mean any such thing (at least, I don’t think he does). Such feelings, cravings and desires are as real as any other. But this isn’t ‘addiction’ in the popular understanding of the term, because it can be conquered by anyone determined enough to do so. Some people won’t overcome these desires, some won’t even try, but others do.

At the risk of being accused of wanting to have my cake and eat it I’m still not sure that I would state with absolute certainty that “addiction does not exist”. I don’t know enough about neuroscience or the validity of studies of the brain’s so-called “reward circuitry”. However, I am able to say that I haven’t come across a definition of addiction that stands up to rigorous logical scrutiny and on the semantic point of “what is addiction?” I now understand Mr Hitchens’ argument.

If you don’t agree with me, let me know. And if you can conjure up a satisfactory definition of addiction, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.’ (If you wish to comment on the Citizen sane blog, please do go there, the address of this article, once again, is http://bit.ly/GzI61T. )

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Hi William

"My country and people has been attacked and dismantled by traitors and fools working from within."

Am loathe to agree but it's true. What would be nice would be if the Government would stop funding parasitic organisations with vested interests in finding 'racism' in every nook and cranny of the country, ie Equality & Diversity Centres etc. Apparently we spend a colossal fortune providing these left-wing troublemakers with the finances to cause more and more trouble.

That lack of finances is always the excuse used as to why nothing ever works in Britain anymore makes it doubly tragic (is it worse to have no money at all or to have lots of money misdirected to all the wrong causes?) My loathing for the Lunatic Left grows daily...

Can't remember who it was that said civilisations die by suicide rather than murder but(s)he seems to be spot on...

Hope you (all) had a lovely Christmas (even the lefties on here, assuming they're not feeling Holier than Though by not wanting to offend anyone. Even so, Happy Christmas)!

The dominance and overarching influence of determinism over the subjects illusory freedom of choice. "

You use the adjective "illusory" to describe "freedom of choice" in what is supposed to be a definition of something which stands or falls by the very existence of the free-will thus denied.
Accordingly your 'definition' of "addiction" is in tatters from the start.

"Free (choice of the) will is a persistent illusion... we are just complicated machines.
(disagree with 'that' and you disagree with the consensus of science (ie: fact).)"

Not so, sir. You will be aware, I presume, that no 'science' - as long as it remains a science - can ever reach unalterable conclusions, simply because subsequent researches may - as they have done in the past - modify, alter and in some cases overturn earlier scientific theories. If you seriously therefore expect the reader to believe that what you call "the consensus of science" represents unalterable fact, you have seriously, as they say, 'backed a loser'.
The moment anyone says "Right, that's enough for me! The sciences have said so and so it must be true", he or she has actually abandoned scientific method and taken to a kind of self-inflicted philosophical myopia instead - like thinking that today's weather forecast will still be valid in a month's time, and that no further updates are necessary

Alan Thomas - I quite expect those of a liberal persuasion to become nervous at the prospect of our enemies being dealt with, even 'effectively' . Why, perhaps you would prefer them all to be invited for afternoon tea ? Wars (and this is a war) are not won in this way, I think you are aware of that. Talking of the 30s/40s, I think we bore down pretty hard on the Germans with the carpet-bombing of Dresden etc, but I guess that was different ?

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I don't especially trust election results throughout the West which, it seems to me, are largely bought and paid for and can be manipulated (thus we have the anomaly of people supporting nationalist policies until they associate them with a demonised party, which can only be attributable to media-conditioning, and a complete divergence of outcome between FPTP and proportional representation.

Yes, Seasons Greetings - may you not cause too much offence to Islamic minority ethnics living nearby.

Sorry for the delay, I did reply early yesterday but it appears to have got lost in the post.

In much the same way as the arrival of the oldest BNP supporter on the blog - offering you support in his unique, but often puzzling style of English - pleases me in a way, your decision to stick by your words also convinces me as to your desired direction of travel.

Perhaps the inability of the 'nationalist Right (? - I raise the question as Mr Barnes always appears to insist they are National Socialists) in this country and in Europe to get their act together is due to the fact that not many people are aparently very keen on political parties who 'bear down hard, very hard' on their opponents. I mean, it all sounds rather 1930/40 'ish, does it not?

As I'm away now until the 27th, I shall respond to any replies on that date.

Andrew Platt
You were talking soecifically about the strange tendency for humans to do what they know to be bad for them, often time and time again, even reflecting upon it lucidly and yet electing to do it again anyway. That's nothing to do with the tragic plight of babies exposed to a poison. Babies don't know it's wrong to poison themselves.
Our civilisation used to call this phenomena sinfulness. The fact that you wish to dismiss it as a judgemental formulation says more about you than it does the concept if sin, which takes some understanding.
The concept of sin is accurate, given the points above. We are insane, we know it, and we have to acknowledge this to stop outsleves. Trying to relativise self destruction by some elaborate means is the only way to side step this obvious truth.
Best wishes
Iain

Oliver writes "Its not 'intellectual fashion' that has got me to the stage of knowing that free-will is an illusion, but by the reading of many books. Neuroscience and Physics completely denies freedom in any part of human action now"

Utter nonsense, and what is more there's no excuse for anyone to make such a ridiculous statement nowadays unless they want to deliberately mislead others - all the information anyone needs to form educated opinions is a few mouse clicks away if you're prepared to pan for the most objective sources.

If you do want to know the most up to date information, search for "BREAKING GROUND IN UNDERSTANDING THE NEUROCHEMICAL AND MOLECULAR ASPECTS OF ADDICTION" and read what the Behavioural & Clinical Neuroscience Institute in Cambridge are uncovering about addiction.

None of it suggests that 'free will is an illusion', but playing Devil's Advocate for a second, if free will is an illusion you are making the case for 'Predetermination' which does in fact put your beliefs in a different light.

Apologies if I've now publicly 'outed' you as a closet Presbyterian, only your over-zealous contempt of the biblical God was an obvious case of 'protesting too much' I'm sure others will have noticed.

Well I don't know what you mean by nationalism - my definition is a government which actually rules specifically in the interests of the people of a country, rather than any labels you care to attach ie one which attacked all of the destructive" liberal" polices which are, and are intended to, drag us down (you know things like excusing crime, drug abuse, encouraging destructive hedonism, encouraging the underclass to proliferate, overcrowding, low educational standards, attacking excellence, attacking national cohesion through mass immigration, attacking cultural standards etc)

I am happy with my original choice of words, thank you very much, I meant what I said. My country and people has been attacked and dismantled by traitors and fools working from within. I wouldn't wish to see these destructive elements dealt with"effectively". I would wish to see them broken beyond recovery. Restitution is part of the process of national reconstruction/renewal.

You're quite right -as yet the British people, and indeed other national peoples throughout Europe, haven't organised themselves effectively.

Mr Thomas
makes the point of bearing down hard, or bearing down " effectively", clearly favouring the latter, A first for him. But if a poll were taken, and probably has been . Would it favour Anthony Blair facing trial for war crimes .now centred in the Hague.
If so that might be seen as very hard . And by the same measure once the public were to see the real truths of what our governance has done I our name, I think the same might be said of many underlings facing the wrath of the mob. For democracy is after all a Greek invention, meaning mob rule.
Plus of course the likes of Mr Thomas and his ilk could concede that nasty skeletons are hidden from view, by the way of "D" notices. A party promising to open up this anomaly Laying bare the crimes these notices were invented to suppress Would be a breath of fresh air. Notwithstanding agents in the field must be protected.
I think the Mirror Pension scandal was one such hush up, until it became untenable. But only then after the demise of its perpetrator. I guess one good reason for the enemies of light, putting their assets into " extreme " parties. for dupes like Mr Thomas to soak up like sponges, when they try to destroy them.
I believe his ilk do not care where the next generation end up.

"I thought that the current mantra was that there are no 'former addicts', just addicts?"

That's an interesting point. The expression 'former addict' would seem to be an oxymoron in the context of this discussion. It supports the idea that addiction is a willpower-driven condition.

I stress 'condition' as opposed 'disease'. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that drug-induced 'collapse of will' is a legitimate neurobiological condition, let alone a disease. Rationality is always available to the intellect and always available to act upon independent of will. Thus it becomes simply a matter of choice. An intellect choosing irrationality really deserves all that the irrational choice behoves.

(‘In this argument, because conventional opinion and majority opinion are behind you, and because you (and intellectual fashion in general) have a deep dislike of the concept of free will and full human responsibility)

Its not 'intellectual fashion' that has got me to the stage of knowing that free-will is an illusion, but by the reading of many books. Neuroscience and Physics completely denies freedom in any part of human action now - and to do so one would have to be resorting to fairy stories such as a biblically self contradictory God (ie: that which cannot endow man with that which He is not...a non-free (perfect God) restricted by the always perfect non-choice)).

Morality is easily balanced (and rationalised) when society rightly punishes those who are criminal by design (and evolved to act).

I understand that scientific consensus of opinion is an anathema to both the Daily Mail's editors 'and' its journalists (re: climate change/global warming etc), but would advise those in control to soon start taking notice of this lack, or we the 'liberal elite' really will become defined by the latter of those two words.

Mr Lassen writes,
“If addiction is a lie, as you clearly suggest, and people are totally free agents in the decision to use drugs as a recreation, AND, as you've suggested countless times, government is incapable of all but the most basic tasks set forth by law, then you have no logical position from which to argue for prohibition at all.”

As far as I understand, Mr Hitchens has criticised that the government has “chosen” not to enforce the law.

Government is capable of enforcing the law if it chooses to do so and is responsible for its choices.

Interesting to note that the words like “incapable” or “impossible” are often used in these addiction arguments.

Iain Campbell answers me economically with the single word “sinfulness”.

I’ve no intention of getting Biblical over this. Let me instead refer him to a point another contributor made about babies born with an addiction. Mr. Hitchens got rather cross about this - always a good smokescreen to allow him to deliberately miss the point - which was that addiction can sometimes affect those that have not made a conscious choice and therefore cannot be held morally responsible.

Mr. Campbell’s term is also rather vague and highly judgemental. Surely we need a far more specific and neutral word to describe the behaviour I refer to.

Thanks for your reply. I must admit I was slightly disappointed with just two 'Ha, Ha's - three 'Ho, Ho, Ho's' were surely more deserving and, of course, more seasonal.

"... bearing down hard, very hard, on all manners of destructive elements."

Yes, but who are these 'nationalists you dream of? Surely not the dishevelled remnant of the BNP/ EDL, who have clearly revealed their inability to either persuade others to support their cause in any number or organise their own squabbling' leadership into an effective political party.

One of the problems with would-be parties with a 'nationalist' agenda is their choice of words. I mean, bearing down 'hard, very hard' might appeal to those who relish the thought, but in terms of attracting wider support 'bearing down 'effectively' might be somewhat more persuasive. And, to return to one of your old favourites, would 'bearing down very hard' on past and present political traitors still remain an essential agenda item for your longed-for nationalist party?

@ Phil W - as one of the contributors who asked you to provide this definition, I must thank you for posting this. Another contributor suggested you wouldn't do this, for fear of subjecting yourself to scrutiny, but I'm glad you've put your head above the parapet, as it were.

As you admit yourself, this definition is imprecise. I was going to go into each of the five elements, but rather than do this, let's save time and concentrate on the fourth one because this, it seems to me, is the crux of the whole thing (the other four elements are statements of the obvious and could be applied to many things).

"Loss of control (note:not absence of control)."

What does this mean, if not the inability or unwillingness to summon enough willpower to refuse, say, another double vodka?

What causes this loss of control? Once lost, can it be regained? If so, how?

David Dawson writes " I am a Drug & Alcohol Clinician and former addict myself".

I thought that the current mantra was that there are no 'former addicts', just addicts?
If you're a former addict, do you consider that you once had an illness which is now cured, or do you still have this 'illness' but do not take drugs anymore?

If addiction is an illness which compels the sufferer to take drugs, by this definition you must now be cured or you wouldn't be able to remain drug free.

You go on to write "To say just don't drink or take drugs is like saying to someone with schizophrenia or any mental illness to to "snap out of it"your just imagining these things."

I don't think anyone has suggested you can just tell an addict to stop, and as a Drug & Alcohol Clinician you will know how pointless it is to send an addict to rehab unless they themselves want to go, and are ready to change their lives completely on leaving rehab, changing who they associate with, changing their habits, avoiding 'triggers' and ideally moving away from their former home.

Not usually possible for the vast majority of addicts.

However, I would also imagine that you yourself know that once an addict decides to stop, and is totally committed for whatever reason, they can go through their 'rattle' (withdrawals) and stop, and for long periods.

My partner was a heroin user which meant I spent years researching the various aspects of addiction, primarily to beat it, even using the Amazonian drug 'Ibogaine' a few times, acquired from a Jesuit priest in Slovenia (in exchange for tea-bags)

The ibogaine enabled my partner to endure the physical withdrawals on each occasion it was used, yet as each heroin free day passed, the temptation to re-use increased as once the opium receptors of the brain have been stimulated by heroin, users are always predisposed towards usage and will always have hunger pangs for it so to speak.

A predisposition does not however remove free will, it just makes abstinence far, far more difficult, and despite having encountered hundreds of addicts, both using and clean, I know of only a couple who have quit heroin for good (hopefully).
If you are now totally clean David, you have my respect, although you may not have been a heroin user, and the fact you say you're clean suggests to be you probably used another drug, based only on my experience.

Taken on it's own, this lack of abstinence could be used as an indication that addiction is indeed an illness.
However, of all the heroin addicts I came to know, none of them had any real intention of quitting. Those who did decide to quit did manage to quit for months on end, bar the odd slip up, but they then basically decided that a drug-free life wasn't for them, so they sank into old routines.

If as some assert Drug taking is an illness . The it behoves those sober amongst us to give these a medical moniker. Something akin to Lepers, although as it still exists and is a gruesome illness . perhaps not .But you see my drift. If it became a well known moniker that had that all important ridiculousness. A Medicated Snot eater sounds OK .
Then I bet the craze would level out. Perhaps some out there could improve on the idea.

The dominance and overarching influence of determinism over the subjects illusory freedom of choice. Simples.
Free (choice of the) will is a persistent illusion... we are just complicated machines.
(disagree with 'that' and you disagree with the consensus of science (ie: fact).)

Yes you are correct in that Owen Jones has finally answered Peter Hitchens on grammar schools. However I fear you're wrong to suggest that any sort of demolition has occurred. A trawl through the comments below the piece makes for interesting reading.

"Jones says only 37% of Oxbridge entrants came from state schools in 1964.

It is now 64%.

Doesn't this demolish the claim selection worked?"

No, it suggests a lowering of standards and grade inflation. Quantity doesn't necessarily equate to quality. You could test this by asking today's pupils to try the qualifying exams of yester year to see how they go on.

Upon further reflection of your seeming position on drugs laws, Mr. Hitchens, I believe your argument boils down to a desire to impose your own morality (drugs use is "bad") through the force of law, because you believe persuasion by other means to not take drugs is a failure.

If addiction is a lie, as you clearly suggest, and people are totally free agents in the decision to use drugs as a recreation, AND, as you've suggested countless times, government is incapable of all but the most basic tasks set forth by law, then you have no logical position from which to argue for prohibition at all. You appear to simply not approve of drugs use and wish to shove that view down the public's throat through the force of law, having no truly altruistic, logical, or studied basis for your position whatever.

***"A person is addicted to an activity he knows to be deleterious if he is unable to stop wanting to do it."***

I don't know; I once got into a conversation with a middle-aged man, about forty, who told me he had quit a bad smoking habit while in his mid-twenties. "Do you miss it?" I asked, somewhat sarcastically. "Oh yes!" was his emphatic reply, and I could not doubt its sincerity, "Every hour of every day of my life!"

I might define addiction as placing a value on an act or thing that is higher than the value that ought to be placed on other acts or things redounding to one's obvious self-interest.

Alan Thomas - ha, ha, you see yourself as quite the comedian don't you? Personally though, I find the decline of Western civilisation to be quite a serious matter. I think it's you that needs to e explain what you mean more fully - by "nationalism'' I mean putting into power men and women who believes in representing the interests of their own people, not some international diaspora, which would include creating conditions of order and stability and bearing down hard, very hard, on all manner of destructive elements. By definition, a ruling class which isn't committed to the concept of a nation or the nation's people will have less of an interest in these things.

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